


One day in Winter, the Midosuji Lights

by lalois



Category: Kanjani8 (Band)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward Dates, Christmas Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Feelings Realization, Healing, Inspired by Music, Introspection, M/M, Making Love, Mental Health Issues, One Shot, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-24 19:33:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22023295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalois/pseuds/lalois
Summary: Ohkura is lonely in Osaka & affected by personal matters: Xmas time is approaching and Midosuji Winter lights are out there for him... or not? Ryo feels like pushing for a date becomes suddenly compulsory, in order for the drummer to overcome his fears.
Relationships: Nishikido Ryo/Ohkura Tadayoshi
Kudos: 1





	One day in Winter, the Midosuji Lights

**Author's Note:**

> Written and set in 2018.  
> Prompt: ANN 01 December 2018 about winter lights in Osaka/Tokyo/Kobe 8D  
> Refers to RL various stuff like (beware! but wrapped in softness&cuteness&feels) Ohkura’s stalker issue; back then Ohkura (with Yoko) was frequently in Osaka, producing Kanju (Naniwa Danshi)’s concert and Ryo was filming Trace drama.

>> Moshi-moshi? <<  
"Hey."  
>> Hey. <<  
"You sounded brilliant tonight," Ryo murmurs straightforwardly, "I am so relieved to hear you like that, you know?"  
>> Thanks... << the drummer replies affectionately over the phone, in a low key.  
  
"Speaking of which, Ohkura... since when you do care about winter illuminations?"  
>> I don't, actually, << Ohkura retorts, and Ryo can almost see him frowning despite the distance. >> As I said on the radio, I don't. <<  
  
"C'mon Tatsu, you don't fool me. All that blabbering about Kobe Luminarie and Tokyo's useless winter lights and you're even pretending you're unaffected?! Or was it just an excuse to hear you flirting with Takahashi-kun as usual?"  
>> I was NOT flirting, Ryochan! << Ohkura growls, sounding outraged.  
  
"Either that or you complaining about being lonely in Osaka. Which one?"  
>> And I am not lonely. And if you just called to have a fight, then you'd better- <<  
"Which one, Ohkura?" Ryo insists.  
  
>> Why should I even bother to reply? <<  
"Because I can be either persuasive or vengeful or both," Ryo grins, pretty bemused.  
  
>> As if I cared. Last time you wanted revenge I pinned you on the wall and- <<  
"Oh c'mon Tatsu, I wanna know!" Ryo whines, sounding suddenly a crybaby.  
>> It's so stupid of you, Ryochan," Ohkura murmurs, and once again Ryo can easily imagine the pout the drummer's lips are outlining on his plump mouth.  
"Yeah that's so stupid of me, then what? I wanna know!!" Ryo insists, almost meowing.  
  
>> There's nothing else to say about it, << Ohkura resolves confessing in the end. >> I am stuck in Osaka, which is the truth, and my boyfriend is equally stuck in Tokyo, which is equally true. That's just it. <<  
  
"Oh. So... you got yourself a boyfriend."  
>> Mh. <<  
  
"Is he cool, at least?"  
>> Mmmhhhhhhhh... <<  
  
"Hey, what's all that hesitation?"  
>> Cool to say the least? He knows how to do a lot of stuff. Very talented and hot, if you know what I mean. But he's a busy guy, of course, so it's not like I would complain. <<  
  
"I see. But he has yet to bring you to see the winter illuminations, so you're sulking anyway."  
>> I have no wish to go there anyway, I told you! And I'm not sulking. <<  
"Yeah, you're not... you're just being stubborn."  
  
>> Ryochan, I am not- <<  
"What are you gonna do right now, Tatsu?"  
>> Eh? <<  
"Right now."  
  
>> Why? <<  
"Just tell me, you moron."  
  
>> Eating. Mom prepared karaage just for me and I promised I'd-... at what exactly are you laughing your ass off, Ryochan? <<  
"You're... oh shit, you're so damn freakin' something...", Ryo laughs, "it's almost 3 am and you're eating karaage, of course."  
>> You're just being envious. My mother's is the best in the world. <<  
  
"Well anyway, I'd better go now, Ohkura. See you, 'kay?"  
>> Uh? You having filming even on Sunday? <<  
"Kinda."  
>> 'kay. Bye, Ryochan. Take care. <<  
"Same," Ryo replies, hanging up. He immediately checks some timetables on his mobile, and decides that a nap might go in the short meantime, for he's gonna have a pretty busy Sunday.  
  
**  
  
He swiftly pecks Ohkura on the lips. Once, twice. Thrice, and not without feeling a certain sense of guilt churning his insides, because tainting the sleeping beauty's rest is always a crime, after all.  
But he has to, and when the drummer opens his heavy lids and blinks perplexed at him, recognizing him at once, Ryo beams because it's so damn worth it.  
  
"Hi, sleeping beauty," he murmurs softly.  
Ohkura keeps staring at him from his futon, rubbing his eyes twice in the process.  
  
"Yeah, it's really me, you moron," Ryo chuckles, going back to sit on his knees beside the futon.  
"Shit, I must have been really, really tired if I start daydreaming like this," Ohkura groans. "You lok almost real, Ryochan!"  
  
"I am real, you idiot!"  
"No, you're not."  
  
"Wouldn't I sound nicer in your dreams, Ohkura?" Ryo patiently asks. "I addressed you with 'idiot' and 'moron', so you should tell I AM real for real, right?"  
Ohkura blinks again.  
  
"But you cannot possibly be here!", he insists. "We were talking over the phone just a couple hours ago, and then I must have fallen asleep and-"  
"The 'couple hours ago' were actually seven hours ago," Ryo explains. "Enough for me for taking a nap, catching the first Nozomi in the morning at Shinagawa bound for Osaka, asking your father for your current address in Higashiosaka since I had long forgotten about the details, sipping some good tea with your parents downstairs and waving them bye, after promising I would have carefully checked on you today. But still, I'm sorry. It's 10:00 in the morning and you could have indeed slept longer, should I have not interrupted your dreams like this."  
  
Ohkura sits on the bed, still blinking from surprise, his brown hair a bit tousled. He holds out one hand to caress Ryo's cheek, and frowns.  
"Gosh... you must be seriously nuts."  
  
Ryo giggles, but does not reply. He merely leans in until he can brush the drummer's lips with his own ones, for a chaste kiss that actually deepens quickly when Ohkura parts his lips and his tongue eagerly claims Ryo's.  
  
Ryo knows he shouldn't give in to the make-out and neither to what follow next, with the drummer's hands tugging at his sweatshirt and slipping underneath his pants, but it's actually hard to resist.  
Ohkura is warm from sleep and smells of soapy shampoo, and doesn't even frown at at Ryo's two-days unkempt beard, judging from the way he pulls and secures him on his lap.  
  
"Planning to claim me all day long, are you?" Ohkura whispers on his mouth when he pulls back for fresh air. He stretches out both arms over Ryo's shoulder, a lazy finger playing with the hair on Ryo's nape.  
"Actually... I am not," Ryo sheepishly replies.  
  
"What do you mean?"  
"We have plans for today, you know."  
"Do we?" the drummer asks, raising an eyebrow. "For real?"  
  
"You mentioned having a busy boyfriend in Tokyo, so I thought that maybe I could set up a little date to make up at his place. What a terrible boyfriend you got, seriously, Tatsu."  
"A date," Ohkura repeats, pondering.  
  
"Kinda. Plans for a date, actually."  
"Plans that do not include us rolling back and forth in bed? Seriously?"  
"Hey, I am the romantic type. Have you forgotten already?"  
Ohkura chuckles, and his whole face brightens up, shaking his head. Such a sight is so enthralling that for a moment Ryo forget everything around them, everything about the whole world but him. A precious little sun whose ray lights are currently facing a tough intestine struggle.  
  
"So, where are you supposed to take me, then?" the drummer asks, distracting him from his reverie.  
"Well... Gotta see the Midosuji illuminations, right?"  
  
"Eh? ... I'm not coming, Ryochan," the drummer tweets, sighing almost.  
"Eeeeh?! No way you're not coming, you idiot!" Ryo cries out aloud. "I came all the way from Tokyo in order for you to see that, you can't-"  
"That's not just it..." Ohkura frowns. "I just... I don't feel like it. Sorry. Going out, having to keep stressing myself wondering whether I'm being followed once again around here, down there, whether someone's just around the corner, maybe even sniggering thinking that I am not the only one being spotted but you are included in the list also... it makes me feel so bad. It makes me sick even having to think about that. Not when I could shut myself in here just for today instead, eating my mother's awesome cooking and being horny with a certain someone until he'll have to go back to Tokyo. Seriously. You cannot make me choose, Ryochan."  
  
Ryo sighs. He wasn't expecting it to be easy. But he won't look down at the problem either. Never anymore.  
  
"It's not like I do not understand, Tatsu," he replies, looking straight at Ohkura's dark almond eyes. "Hell knows if I don't. But I need you to trust me. Please, please trust me just for today, at least. Think about me only, Tatsu. Look at me only, and let me guide you outside. And I can promise, I can swear it, it will be worth it.  
I'm not asking you to do it for me, not at all. I want you to do that for yourself. You need to shake it all off you. Please."  
Ohkura lets his hands slide down Ryo's neck, his fingertips brushing his spine all along, his fingers resting by his hips, making him hiss openly from pleasure. The drummer smirks when their eyes meet again.  
  
"Shit. Don't make me go back to my words, please," Ryo asks him. "I haven't said it would have been easy, for neither of us. But I know you need this."  
"You're really something, Ryochan," the drummer murmurs, leaning in to leave a languorous kiss on Ryo's lips.  
"Stop tempting me," Ryo groans afterwards.  
  
"It's called appreciation, rather than temptation."  
"Well then, I might sound rude to such appreciation but we do need to have your lazy ass out of your futon as fast as possible," Ryo insists, relinquishing himself from the embrace.  
  
"You're such a jerk, Ryochan," Ohkura whines, wriggling his nose openly.  
"You still don't know how much, Beauty," Ryo teases.  
"And it's not even my futon, anyway," the drummer explains. "Mom brought this here for me especially in my brother's room, since I don't have a room here at my parents' anymore."  
  
"Whatever. C'mon, stand up and get dressed."  
"I guess sweatpants won't go, right?"  
"I guess I don't actually care. It's you I'm taking out on a date, not your clothes," Ryo says, frowning.  
  
Ohkura pouts again, but the mischievous way this time, and Ryo loves it. He also likes the way Ohkura opens his brother's wardrobe beside the futon and quickly and carefully borrows a dark turtleneck sweater and a pair of grey jeans.  
The drummer is having a little fight with the belt and Ryo would love to help, but he knows he'd better not, avoiding temptation to start with.  
  
Ohkura asks him again where they're going to go since Ryo makes the two of them take the Kintetsu metro and then stop by some part of Higashiosaka he never actually bothered to stop at.  
  
The drummer frowns a little, tweeting that he wants to know more, but Ryo is beaming already, especially when they turn the last corner and the Shiba Ryotaro Memorial Museum appears in front of them, and Ohkura is basically aghast.  
  
"You've never been here, right?"  
"Nope... not yet, I mean," Ohkura admits, blushing a little. "How did you know that?"  
"Sipping some good tea with your parents proved to be a very valuable time in more than one way, I have to say," Ryo muses.  
  
Ohkura chuckles, and his shoulder gently brushes Ryo's and not by chance, when his pace goes quicker and he overtakes Ryo in his rush for getting the tickets.  
For such childish impudence, Ryo gets rewarded with a sweet smile, and knuckles end up brushing not-exactly-accidentally his own one when they're once again one beside the other.  
  
Ohkura's attention gets devoured by books, afterwards.  
Ryo takes his time watching him, for it's a must-see. He's beautiful, more than he might have ever been, because the moment Ohkura takes a book from one of the shelves –filled up to the ceiling- and flips it gently open, his features relax at once and he's once again the quiet and thoughtful guy Ryo got to appreciate delicately through the decades.  
  
He'd love to stop time, to watch him being so hooked by precious old books, imprisoned in the smell of paper that won't ever harm him, looking defenseless and attractive and perfect, just perfect.  
Until the drummer intercepts his gaze and softens, a cheeky gleam adorning his dark almond eyes while he starts walking towards Ryo and stops just in front of him. Too close, actually.  
They stare at each other for longer than due, and during that long minute no words are needed.  
  
Then, it's Ryo breaking the spell.  
"Is this place for bookworms not bookworm-like enough for you?"  
"What do you reckon?"  
"I was the one asking first."  
"So?"  
  
"So please behave and give me a proper reply."  
"Should I really?"  
"You should."  
  
Ohkura purses his lips and his eyes narrow, in that typical way of this that makes Ryo feels cold shivers throughout him immediately, even before he actually speaks.  
  
"I'd love to kiss you, right now, but I won't," the drummer whispers, barely audible, looking straight at him.  
"That's not what I asked you," Ryo retorts, beaming.  
"That's my reply, though."  
"Of course you won't," Ryo grins. "It's not the place, not the time. 'Coz we've got plenty of things to do today, told ya."  
"What's next, then?" Ohkura smiles.  
  
Ryo grins again and pouts, and Ohkura's forced to follow him clueless when they're done with the twenty thousand books the museums gathers, and they later both find themselves in the small ramen restaurant Ryo never visited but Ohkura did several times, with a close relative of his.  
  
"It's here, the place where your grandpa loved bringing you, right?" Ryo asks raising an eyebrow, while the drummer is caught by a sudden reverie.  
"How the heck..." Ohkura trails off, and Ryo just sticks out his tongue, like a brat.  
  
"Ryochan, you can't..."  
"I cannot what?"  
They look at each other, again.  
"I'm hungry," Ohkura declares.  
  
"Mmh, big news here," Ryo says, winking, and Ohkura chuckles sweetly as a reply.  
"You're having me pampered. Very much," the drummer says, sounding casual.  
"I never said I'd treat you, actually."  
"It's not money I was talking about."  
  
"About what, then?" Ryo ventures asking, looking like the most innocent of children even though he knows he's not.  
"I am very, very hungry now," Ohkura repeats, in a lower and rather sexy tone.  
"Sure," Ryo chuckles. "I had figured that out, that's why we're here. But you still haven't sat down to slurp your own bowl so I'm trying so hard to figure out what's wrong with you. Babe." Ryo mocks him, raising both eyebrows, naughty and cool.  
Ohkura looks at him and then actually chooses to sit down on the farthest end of the counter, on a corner, and when Ryo joins him it's to sit beside him and choose a bowl of ramen different in flavour, so that they can savour the taste of each other's meal by sipping the broth quietly, legs under the table brushing not so accidentally against each other's.  
Everything else is forgotten, everything that does not belong to their own little and very private world, in the middle of ordinariness.  
  
Ohkura lets out a chirpy burp when he's done, a sound so tender and childish that Ryo cannot help but think it's so very much worth it, being by his side simply like this.  
  
"Whenever I was upset, grandpa always brought me here," Ohkura tells him out of the blue. "He was always able to figure out when something was off, even though maybe he had not seen me for long."  
"Must have been a great man," Ryo replies, sipping his last glass of water.  
  
"He'd be proud of you," the drummer tells him casually, but not so casually, and Ryo looks away before starting to blush like an idiot when he grasps the meaning behind those very simple words.  
When he turns back, Ohkura is frantically texting already, having Ryo wonder whether he might have only dreamed of hearing those straightforward words.  
  
But then it's his own mobile buzzing, and when he sees the sender of the e-mail is the band mate he's setting next to, he blinks.  
  
\-- How 'bout going back home rn?  
\-- Wanna make love to you. Rn.  
  
Ryo looks up, to the guy who is still avoiding his own gaze, whose cheeks are now slightly pink, and not from the heat of the hot ramen they've both had.  
Ryo doesn't remember the last time he's flirted that openly with someone whose heart and soul is already deeply his, but it feels like it's enhancing the way his own heart is pounding in his chest, every time he sees the drummer chuckle, beam, and laugh.  
  
“You’re making it more complicated than it is already, moron…” Ryo says in a low voice, hissing almost, elbowing the drummer.  
“It was you who-“  
“Two more stops to go, Ohkura,” Ryo insists. “Two more things I won’t definitely let you skips today.”  
Ohkura rolls his eyes and sighs, but follows Ryo again, as quietly as he can.  
  
It's the very heart of Osaka, their next stop.  
It’s in Dotonbori, stepping inside the Shochikuza Theater to see how the Kansai Juniors are doing, with Yoko and Ohkura producing their upcoming Christmas concert.  
“I’ve been here yesterday, and I’ll be here tomorrow as well,” Ohkura says, frowning. “Why would it be important to come and check on them today also?”  
  
“Because I’ve been here to check on them as well. And the look you have in your eyes while you take care of them is also the one you should have when watching yourself at the mirror, Ohkura. Worrying, teaching and taking care of yourself are no less important, and those skills of yours that you’ve been able to improve during the years, and that make you now a very respected senpai, are also what make you great as a guy, greater than so many other people, me included. You needn’t me to tell you you’re a beautiful person, Tatsu, for a way more skilled lyricist already told you so and still, you shake those words off as if they’re not true. Why on Earth, I wonder?”  
  
The drummer does not reply. He simply looks away, chewing his lip, until one of the Kansai Junior boys’ dance move catches his attention and he quickly rushes to the stage to offer him gently some more advice. And when he’s back, excusing himself, Ryo cannot help but smirk at such sight.  
  
“So?” Ohkura asks.  
“So, there’s only one thing left now, and you should know that.”  
  
“Don’t do that to me, Ryochan, please,” the drummer begs him, a slight panic making his voice sound raspy. But Ryo furtively takes his hand and guides him outside the theater, then turns left and they’re into the crowd of Dotonbori, and at the next corner Ohkura is about to turn left again to reach the nearest Midosuji metro entrance but Ryo intercepts his intention in advance and pushes him on the opposite direction instead, even further in the dazzling lights of the four kilometers spanning from Nanba to Umeda: it’s the soul of Osaka in winter, the so-called Festival of the Lights, when the city gets illuminated in stunning scale and the long road becomes one of the world's longest illuminated streets. Ginkgo trees are adorned with lights and shops and historic buildings get decorated as well, making it the most attractive spot for a night stroll during Christmas Time.  
  
Ohkura’s hand trembles in Ryo’s grip, and Ryo lets it go instead of squeezing it harder, making the drummer turn abruptly to search for him among the crowd. But Ryo’s not gone, he’s being his shadow instead.  
  
“I’m by your side always,” Ryo mouths, gently placing a hand on Ohkura’s back to guide him amidst the crowd, keeping himself half a step back without losing eye nor touch contact, like a guardian angel.  
“Please look up and take in the lights only, Tatsu,” he whispers gently. “That’s all that matters to you right now. The lights you wanted to see, the festive atmosphere… all that’s good in the world Ignore the rest. See?”  
  
They walk slowly, almost blinded by the intensity of the golden and pink of the lights, almost deaf by the buzz of people.  
Ohkura feels like suffocating, at first. The place he’s avoided, and the very same one he wished to see one day, possibly without the fears attacking him whenever he's around Osaka, alone, lately.  
  
Too many people, so much danger of being touched, violated by some stranger, and panic is seizing him despite all his best efforts; he wants to flee, he wants people to disappear, he wants to disappear as well. He closes his eyes for a second and tries hard to breathe deeply and slowly; he keeps walking forward, equally slowly, Ryo’s presence still tenderly guiding him. And there's suddenly something else that menace to overwhelm him. As they walk further into Shinsaibashisuji, there’s another sensation creeping up in him, something warm tingling his insides, spreading up throughout his whole self. While his own breathing relaxes slowly, Ohkura realizes it has very little to do with strangers and very much to do with the guy brushing almost unconsciously the back of his hand from time to time, keeping an eye on him as discreetly as he can, as light as a feather, not saying a word anymore. The unpleasant sensation of panic has not vanished completely yet, but it’s being patiently conquered by this weird reassuring feeling taking over him, as the stroll becomes something quite lighter now with every new step he takes.  
  
Deep inside himself, the drummer knows what it is.  
It's called love, and he feels like suffocating, again, but this time for a very different reason.  
  
“… Ryochan…”  
  
The drummer stops walking and Ryo does almost bump into him. The younger man turns and Ryo notices his right cheek is wet and marked by the trail of a single tear.  
  
“Hey… it’s being really too much in the end, right?” Ryo snorts, a sense of guilt suddenly invading him.  
“Nope,” Ohkura shakes his head, “don’t worry, Ryochan, it’s just… It's something I cannot tell you about right here, right now.”  
  
Ryo rubs his hand gently up and down the sleeve of Ohkura’s long coat, in a soothing way.  
“… Something you could maybe tell me somewhere else, then?”  
The drummer nods.  
  
“Could you please take me home, Ryochan?”  
  
Ryo saddens slightly, for such request cannot be denied anymore, and their date is over in more than a way.  
It takes a while before they can reach the Ohkura's in Higashiosaka again, and they don't talk at all during the 40 minutes' time transfer with the Chuo line. It's late afternoon but pitch black already, and the house is empty.  
Ohkura is still shaking a little bit; Ryo notices it when the drummer retrieves his home keys, and cannot help but worry, and feel even more guilty.  
  
"I'd better go back as well, right?" he sighs when Ohkura closes the door behind them.  
"Not at all," his band mate replies, pushing Ryo gently against the wall and kissing his mouth once, twice, thrice. Ryo moans, and his question temporarily dies there, in between the warmth of their coats brushing against each other and Ohkura's cheeks chilly from the cold outside.  
  
When they pull back from the languid make-out, none of them dares moving, and both breathe in from each other's warm breath instead.  
"Thanks for today," Ohkura murmurs then on his mouth.  
  
"You're welcome but… I guess it was too much. I’m sorry. How are you feeling?"  
“...Horny, actually,” it’s the mere reply Ryo gets, to which he ends up giggling against his own will.  
  
"Eh?! That's not what I-" he gets shut up by chapped lips on his own again, pecking him swiftly but not that innocently. Ohkura makes sure to rub his hips fairly enough against him and Ryo can feel it for sure, the sincerity behind the drummer's blunt words.  
  
"Can you stay some little longer? Make love to me, please?" the drummer asks, and when it's asked in such a low-key sensual voice, with such plea in the tone, Ryo cannot refuse, not even when he'd love to know what's going on in the mess that must be Ohkura's mind right now.  
  
When they reach the brother's room upstairs and the drummer takes off his turtleneck and opens his jeans, he seems having no intention to lay down on the futon at all, and so Ryo pushes him against the nearest wall, lavishing kisses on the nude skin, the soft nipples and the throbbing member offered to his sight. He gets distracted a few instants only, the time required for Ohkura to slip him off his own pullover, and then Ryo's mouth is around Ohkura's length again and the latter is moaning and thrusting himself more and more into Ryo without refrain nor shame nor fear.  
When Ryo is done and the drummer literally collapses in the guitarist's arms, howling from pleasure, Ryo cradles him tenderly, kissing his shoulder and neck while Ohkura pushes his own hands inside Ryo's pants, groping his butt firmly before pulling his clothes hastily down.  
  
"Make love to me," Ohkura repeats, this time in the shell of Ryo's left ear, and this time Ryo does shift the both of them down on the futon, with him towering on Ohkura and the drummer looking up at him with lustful and liquid eyes.  
Right when he bends down to kiss his lover on the mouth, Ohkura says it and it lingers there, between their lips, for the most fleeting of instants, before being licked away by a tongue searching for its twin.  
  
I love you.  
  
Ryo cannot pull back and doesn't even wish for it, not when he only thing he can do is fulfill Ohkura's request which is incidentally resonating with the vibrations hammering his own heart.  
  
Make love to him.  
Love him.  
Of all things, love him.  
  
When it's all over, and the drummer is snuggled beside him snoring softly already, Ryo wishes he could turn back time and erase it all.  
  
Ohkura's peaceful breathing, the warmth of the large hand secured around his hip, the contented expression on his face, his open declaration of love even: Ryo would eagerly trade them all for oblivion, should someone grant him that in exchange his soul mate would never have to deal with his stalker issue to start with and anymore, thus ending up this exposed to fragility, this soul bleeding, this distraught.  
  
But Ryo cannot turn back time. He can only stay by his lover's side the best he can, which is incidentally proving to be tough enough, given their crazy work schedule, and dare to hope. Hope that one day, they could maybe laugh it off together. Together, of all things.  
  
Ohkura suddenly sneezes, wakes up and looks frantically at Ryo.  
"Oh shit... Had I fallen asleep?"  
"I unnecessarily woke you up earlier than due this morning, so you had all reasons to fall asleep," Ryo muses, propping himself on one elbow. "Besides, I really have to go now."  
  
“That was all but unnecessary,” the drummer replies. “You know, my boyfriend took the bother to come all the way from Tokyo just for the sake of visiting a sick me today. I would dare say it’s all but unnecessary.”  
  
“The boyfriend came all fired up but has had to realize he doesn’t have the magic powers of healing this kind of sickness, though. Willpower alone is not enough,” Ryo retorts, picking up his clothes from their feet at the end of the futon.  
  
“I am extremely glad he keeps trying and trying, though, kicking my ass when it’s required,” Ohkura says, sitting up as well. He’s staring at Ryo, whose eyes are equally locked to him, and then bends forward to meet Ryo’s lips in a chaste kiss.  
“Thanks for being stubborn enough to wish for bringing me there to see the winter lights. I promise I won’t give up, either. I want to be up to..." he trails off and shakes his head, unsure how to say it best. "I want you to still think I was even worth a round-trip to Osaka on a very much needed free Sunday and- shit, no,no, sorry... not like this. This is being so awfully cheesy, shit..." he shakes his head again, avoiding Ryo's gaze, and lowers his voice even more. "I cannot seem to pick up the words I'd love to, today, to tell you the exact extent of what this date got to mean to me, and I'm not even sure I can make it all up through the unspoken ones."  
  
Ryo pulls him by the nape and bites the plump lips and then sucks at them, as if wishing to drain all the words he doesn’t want to hear from his battered beloved one. Ohkura gives in to the long kiss that follows, as the make-out deepens and arms go around each other, tightening as if never wishing to let go anymore.  
  
“You’re making it extremely complicated for me to go,” Ryo confesses afterwards, a tender smile on the swollen lips, still hugging the drummer too tight, for the sake of both. He can hear Ohkura sigh softly against his shoulder.  
  
"Nee, Ryochan, would you tell me one thing? Do you like the winter lights?"  
"Not that much," Ryo shrugs, "but I do like you." He's being as blunt as always and yet, the various meanings behind his words are way softer than his seeming harshness, and the drummer can feel it even from the tender way Ryo keeps holding on to him so endearingly tight. "And please come back home soon, okay?" he goes on. "Sure I do care also for the Kansai boys, but I cannot take care of your plants for long anyway, you know that."  
  
Ohkura pulls back from the embrace with a giggle, and looks at Ryo's dark eyes.  
"Please call me when you'll be there, so that you can tell me if you need help with some of my green babies. And I'll call tomorrow as well, when I'll try taking another stroll in Midosuji after work. How does that sound?"  
"Less lonely than yesterday for sure," Ryo smirk while standing back up on his feet, and Ohkura offers him a proud pout. "Never forget I'm so fucking proud of you, babe," the guitarist adds, "and always will be. So stand up and walk on, and be proud and fuck those hags, okay?"  
  
Ohkura starts humming a few lines of a certain song, and Ryo throws him the nearest pillow as a reply.  
  
"What's with that now?! You're making me wish to go back there right now! Moron!" He howls, picking up what's left of his clothes and taking his leave, however unable to hide his bemusement.  
"Your fault, Ryochan!" Ohkura laughs, stirring in bed. "You don't like them, and me neither, and yet it happened again!" he shouts. "Right there! Today! Could you tell?!"  
  
The drummer can hear the door slamming downstairs, and wonders if maybe his last words have not reached Ryo in time.  
He'd better text him, he reckons, so he can read it while on the Shinkansen.  
  
Ryo deserves to be told. And told again, until morning will come.  
  
  
~Koi wo suru nara Midosuji kara hajimaru no sa~  
If you're going to fall in love, then start at Midosuji  
\- Osaka Romanesque-

**Author's Note:**

> Kobe Luminarie is a worldwide famous winter illumination event taking place in Kobe. However not as famous, Osaka’s Festival of Lights mentioned in the fic above is real and so are all the details provided.  
> A lot of RL snippets are taken from their own mention here and there.  
> The Shiba Ryotaro Museum mentioned in the fic is equally real and located in Higashiosaka: There are 20.000 books there, stuffed into shelves up to 11 meters high. I'm sure Ohkura would love such place ^_^  
> Last but not least: both work title & citation in the end are not without a ref to Eito's music, of course :)


End file.
